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Live exercise to test emergency response to incident in Harwich Harbour

Organisations will test their response to a maritime incident within Harwich Harbour in a large-scale, multi-agency exercise taking place next month.

Exercise Adler 4 will simulate a dual incident, with a container ship catching fire and a passenger vessel sinking forming the main scenario.

Led by Harwich Haven Authority and the Essex Resilience Forum, Exercise Adler 4 will test all aspects of the response by emergency services and other agencies to such an incident.

This includes marine firefighting and search and rescue, mass landing of casualties at Harwich, co-ordinating systems for media, survivors and their friends and family, and the command and control processes.

Taking place on 16 September 2019, numerous agencies are involved including Harwich Haven Authority, the multi-agency partners of the Essex Resilience Forum, which includes emergency services and organisations from the Voluntary and private sectors. Exercise Adler 4 will also be ‘played’ at the highest Ministerial level.

With hundreds of responders involved, organisers are keen to reassure Harwich residents, businesses and visitors that the incident is simulated and not real.

Neil Glendinning, Chief Executive, Harwich Haven Authority commented: “I would like to thank everyone who has been involved in the planning of Exercise Adler 4, which has been a huge task for the Authority but also for all of the agencies taking part.

“As with all emergency planning exercises, it’s the job of organisations that provide safety-critical services to think hard about anything that could go wrong, to develop plans to deal with any such incident and then to exercise those plans to make sure that they work. That is exactly what we are doing with Exercise Adler 4.”

Harwich Haven Authority has previously conducted a series of exercises under the Adler umbrella, which looked to test responses to maritime and pollution incidents.